


hearts and thoughts (they fade, fade away)

by orangeORmango



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Brought this back from the dead, Btw i do a lot of AUs, F/F, Idk i dont feel like this is the best, Lol we all stan Choni, Please comment suggestions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 07:19:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16739557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangeORmango/pseuds/orangeORmango
Summary: An AU where Jughead didn’t call Cheryl when Toni was captured by the Ghoulies, and everyone thought she was dead. Cheryl was heartbroken, spiraled into depression and self-harm and is just getting back on her feet. Until she finds out Toni never died.





	1. i guess it was all for nothing

**Author's Note:**

> I started this a while ago and I thought I should post it... don't worry I'm not abandoning scars are our only connection (maybe we can change that).

Cheryl woke up with start. She found herself tangled in blood spotted bedsheets, gasping for air. She had been dreaming about Toni. Again. She thought she could hear the sound of her girlfriend whispering in her ear, thought she caught the scent of vanilla, of flowers. Cheryl curled up inside of herself and began to cry again. Just when she was starting to believe it was getting better.  
“Cheryl!” Veronica was banging on the door. What time was it? The tear-soaked redhead pulled her alarm clock off the bedside table that was missing a leg. She groaned when she saw it was almost noon.  
“I’m coming, Ronnie!” Cheryl called out to Veronica, slowly unpeeling herself from the tangled sheets. It had become a routine. The Lodge that was getting even richer than her parents from both acting and running several legitimate businesses would check on her every Friday. Clean her up if she hurt herself again. Wash the dishes piling up in the too-small sink. Lecture her about getting a therapist. Then leave. She cared, but not that much. Not like Toni did. No one else would ever care for her like Toni. Maybe she didn’t deserve it, maybe her mother was right.  
Cheryl flicked her long curls over her shoulder and yanked open the door. “Hi, Ronnie.” The twenty year old forced a watery smile. “I’m okay today. You can get back to your increasingly busy life. Really, you don’t need to come over every week.” Cheryl could see Veronica hesitating. On the one hand, she wanted to confirm the mourning redhead was alright. On the other, she really didn’t care a whole lot, and she had tons of emails and bills to tend to.  
“Are you really sure?” Veronica asked.  
“I’m fine. Shoo, shoo. Go back to your life. You deserve a break from dealing with me.” Cheryl assured her. No one deserved to deal with the deviant monster she was.  
“Get a therapist, Bombshell.” Cheryl winced when Veronica said her nickname. Only Toni had called her that, only Toni had made it sound cute. But she was gone, gone forever. Never coming back. Just like Jason. She deserved it anyway. It was all her fault. Cheryl shut the door once Veronica turned around, heels clicking down the polished hallway. She began to sob again, sliding into a sitting position against the door.  
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Unbeknownst to Cheryl, only a few miles away, Toni Topaz, the love of her life, had just finished an early morning shift in her large office. Toni sighed in relief and leaned back in her swivel chair. Once again, her thoughts wandered to Cheryl. Her true love, the one she had always imagined a future with. She had been trying to find her for weeks, now that she had some stability in her life. The Ghoulies and Penny Peabody had been taken care off. She had never memorized Cheryl’s number, and her phone had been stolen and lost the night she was kidnapped. The redhead’s social media had been dead for a year. The Blossom maple syrup company was rotting at the edge of the abandoned property. When she had looked up her name, the most recent thing to come up was just after graduation. It was a wild goose chase. She couldn’t contact any of her friends. She wanted to see Cheryl first, she wanted to hear her sweet voice, kiss her perfectly painted lips. She wanted to say sorry, she wanted to cling on to her while they both cried into each other’s shoulders.  
“Cheryl, where are you, my love?” Toni whispered at her phone, thumbing through old Instagram photos of the two of them together. So imagine her surprise when a new post popped up. Toni gasped and dropped her phone, tears already trailing down her face. She quickly picked it up, brushing off invisible dirt. Toni nearly dropped it again when she saw the post.  
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Cheryl felt like she was drowning. Drowning in tears, her mother’s words that she thought she had buried in her dark past.  
What would you know about it? You’ve never known love, Cheryl, except to rip it apart. Because you are a jealous, spite-filled, starving, emotional anorexic. Have a nice day at school, dear. No Cheryl, as always, it’s what you would have wanted! The words raced inside her head, around and around until the sobbing redhead thought her head would explode, and when Veronica came back in week (if she bothered) she would find a rotting corpse lying on the floor. Maybe she deserved it after all. Maybe she would be with Toni. Maybe. Just maybe. But Toni wouldn’t have wanted that. Would she?  
Cheryl felt like she was choking again, and she had to do something, anything to stop. She stood up abruptly, and she felt dizzy and nauseous from dehydration and being curled up for so long. A sudden memory broke through Cheryl’s haze of panic and tears.  
“Cheryl, you have to know it’s okay to let out your pain. You don’t have to shut it up inside you. I’m always here for you.” Toni’s huge brown eyes were looking up at her, love shining through so strongly they both felt they would never truly need to utter those three words out loud; their looks said it all.  
“For now.” Cheryl sniffed, wiping her nose carelessly.  
“What do you mean?” Toni had asked, squeezing her hand tightly.  
“Everyone I love dies. Everyone. I don’t want you to join my ever-increasing list.”  
“Never. I will always be here for you.” Toni’s voice cracked slightly. “Even if I do die, it won’t be because of you. It will be the life I grew up in, the life I chose to live. You never caused those deaths. Never think that, okay my beautiful Bombshell?”  
“Okay,” Cheryl promised, curling up to Toni. “I won’t, not ever. Not anymore, T.T. You’re my candle in the darkness, my lifeboat amid the sharks.” The small serpent grinned up at her, inhaling her girlfriend’s sweet scent.  
Cheryl needed to do something, anything to break free from this. She wanted a new life, she thought suddenly. But she couldn’t just drop everything and run. The air seemed to get thick and heavy to Cheryl. On an impulse, the young redhead yanked her phone out of her charger and opened her Instagram. Old posts. Posts from three years ago, pictures of her and Toni. Smiling, laughing, so in love the sight made a dull ache inside her heart when she saw them. Cheryl held up her phone a snapped a photo. Her pain. Loss she should have moved on from, but didn’t. Never would. Toni would have been proud of the photo. Not of what was in it, but of the message, the powerful voice it spoke with. More powerful than her, more than she had been in a long time.

 

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It was a photo of what seemed to be Cheryl’s apartment. Weak sunlight was leaking through half-closed blinds from large windows above the queen bed. Toni recognized the room suddenly. It was the one that she and Cheryl had planned to rent. The sheets were tangled and unwashed, with stains of what seemed to blood on them. Dirty clothes and dishes were strewn across the room.  
“Nonono!” Toni sobbed at the dim screen. “No, my love, don’t do this to yourself!” The tiny Serpent felt even worse when she read the caption.  
I’m sorry Toni. I never deserved you. I miss you so much, it’s all my fault that no one cares. Before Toni’s eyes, comments popped up.  
therealVeronicaLodge: Cheryl, it’s not your fault. It’s the Ghoulies, and you need a therapist.  
ArchieandDrews: Cheryl? What’s wrong? Do you need help?  
SweetPeasinapod: Cheryl, Toni wouldn’t want this. BE STRONG FOR US.  
serpentsFangs: I agree with Sweet Pea. You can do better. Don’t drown in your misery.  
RRReg: Hey, if you need cheering up I’m always around. ;)  
Toni quickly typed out a comment, her finger flying over the keyboard.  
Toni_Gemstone: Cheryl, I’m okay. I’m so sorry I lied to you, but I had to escape from the Ghoulies. I’ve been trying to contact you for so long, I just couldn’t find you. I’m so sorry Bombshell. I never wanted it to be like this. I wanted us to have a future together. I love you, ma Cherie.  
SweetPeasinapod: Is this some sick joke?  
serpentsFangs: Tiny, is this really you?  
CherylBombshell: This can’t be you.  
Toni_Gemstone: It’s really me. I can prove it.  
CherylBombshell: How? I can’t believe it, not after all these years. Even if it was you, I’m not the same person you used to love.  
Toni_Gemstone: I don’t care if you’re different, I never stopped loving you. Remember? When you told Jughead that Archie and Betty kissed, and I came into the bathroom? And you said “get your Sapphic, serpent hands off my body!” And on our first date, you confessed to me about Heather? I said you were sensational, and you still are now. Always, Bombshell.  
CherylBombshell: Toni?  
Toni_Gemstone: Yes, it’s really, truly me. I LOVE YOU.  
therealVeronicaLodge: Oh my god it’s really you, Antoinette.  
SweetPeasinapod: How could you, Tiny?  
serpentsFangs: You couldn’t tell us? WE GREW UP TOGETHER!  
Toni_Gemstone: I know I can never fix what I’ve done, all I can say is sorry.  
CherylBombshell: You couldn’t have done ANYTHING? Left me, I don’t know, A NOTE?  
Toni_Gemstone: I know. I was stupid. I shouldn’t have done what I did. I should have come back to you, we could have figured it out together. But I know I can’t fix a bullet hole with a Band-Aid. Can we meet? I’m only about an hour away. We could go to the café we planned to go to, after our first night at the apartment.  
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Cheryl uncurled herself from the floor and sat back up, her spine rigid and straight. Tears were streaming freely down her face now, and they were dripping down onto her phone. She was alive. The love of her life. The one person who had ever truly cared, the person who told her she was sensational. The girl she had been mourning for three years. Cheryl nearly fell over when a realization hit her. Toni had recognized the apartment. She remembered, after all these years. She remembered the café, she probably remembered all the plans that they had made.  
CherylBombshell: Meet me there at 3:00. If you’re late, you’ve missed your chance, Cha Cha.  
Toni_Gemstone: I’ll see you there. Love you.  
Cheryl stared at the phone again with unseeing eyes. Her vision blurred and she was lost in waves of memories. It must have been an hour when a text from Veronica snapped her out of her trance. She skimmed the lengthy paragraph without really reading it and sent a brainless reply that made no sense. She had to get ready. Toni couldn’t see her like this.  
Cheryl stood up with new determination, brushing off food crumbs from the skirt she had been wearing for a week. She staggered to her closet and changed. Again. And again. She finally decided on the outfit that she had worn at the drag race, the first time she had met Toni. She reapplied her makeup, painting her lips that iconic Blossom red for the first time in month, when she had stopped caring. She checked the clock. 1:30. She read half of a boring book to pass the time. 2:19. The redhead cleaned her apartment vigorously, going over the same places again and again. 2:50. Close enough. Cheryl practically ran out of the building (a little difficult in heels, when she had been out of practice). She leaped into her car and fixed her hair. Just five minutes later, she arrived at the café.


	2. sorry not sorry

Hey guys so I'm not gonna continue this cuz I really am not liking it so maybe I'll come back to it in like a year if I'm still alive

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song 'Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town'. Thought it would be fitting for Riverdale.


End file.
